A note from your host Jimmy Beltz first. You will see somethings below that are for SmugMug only. But these techniques will of course work for any place else where you have this same measure of control. SmugMug is of course sponsors of the show and people I believe in, but I don't want you thinking that all of the below is for SmugMug only. It's not. If you are on SmugMug, then it makes it that much easier. YEAH!
If you have questions, or think that this tutorial should be tweaked in some way, please let us know and we will alter these contents. And thank you so much, Shannon, for going through this much work to make this. You rock!
Sincerely,
James Beltz
-----------------------------
The following was written by Shannon Allison and posted to the old forums. It has been copy and masted here as those forums are being moved...
There are a lot of ways to get your website found by Google. I am going to show you a few. There needs to be a disclaimer here, OK, This WILL NOT happen in hours or overnight but it will happen in a timely manner if you follow what I outline. I actually came across this by playing around with Google and doing a lot of reading. This is a multipart process and will work if your dedicated foe a few days. I noticed results fairly quick and have been happy, especially since I didn’t spend a dime to make it happen. Are you willing to spend a few minutes for a week or so to get your business seen on the first page of Google? OK, enough babbling!! Lets MAKE IT HAPPEN!
1. Sign up for Google webmaster tools at http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
After you are signed up you will get to a screen that looks close to this, see below.
2. What you need to do now is “add a site”, now there are a few different ways to add your site.
![Image]()
![Image]()
![Image]()
Click the radio button for “add a meta tag to your site’s home page”. When you do this some text will appear in the blue box below. Now copy this text, and go to your website on SMUGMUG. You need to be signed in to your account and navigate to the control panel. Follow this path, tools>control panel>customize>advanced customizer>click edit, and you will come to this screen.
![Image]()
When you get to this area you want to scroll down to HEAD TAG. See below.
![Image]()
Now that you are here what you want to do is paste the text you copied from the webmaster website. See below for all the text I have in this box because this will lead into the next part of this tutorial.”Plastering your website with keywords that Google will see, without your customers seeing any of it”.
<META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="Shannon Allison,photographer,on location,child portraits,family portraits,private portraits,pictures,baby portraits,photographer Shannon Allison,high school senior portraits,portraits kids,portraits family,real estate photography,corporate portraits,product photography,business photography,event photography,special event photography,areal photography,car show photographer,reasonable price photography,cheap photography,outdoor portraits,"Bellefonte PA 16823","Pennsylvania photographer",corporate photographer,state college pa 16803,16801,17701,"state college pa photographer","penn state area photographer",>
<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="I am a on location photographer in Bellefonte PA 16823. I can and will do all types of photography. I can and will travel a reasonable distance to take your photographs.">
<META NAME="Author" CONTENT="shannon@shannonallisonphotography.com">
<meta name="google-site-verification" content="uA720qYp2mbpdQi0bEgPOyTPFcpE7h8bl_qUjC-aheo" />
Please note that everyone's verification will be different so don't copy mine,, it wont work!
*The last line which I highlighted is the Google verification text.FYI*
After you save the Google verification into your head tag, go ahead and save what you entered via the save button at the bottom of the page.
Next what you’re going to do is go back to where you copied the verification text and click “verify”. See below.
![Image]()
After you click verify you will, if everything was done correctly, you will get to a page like this.
![Image]()
If you get to this site, congratulations, your site is now verified with the world’s largest search engine. You may say yeah so, well think of it this way, when was the last time you went somewhere other than Google? Having said that, all the Droid phones and most of the other smart phones out there have Google apps that people use religiously. GOOGLE IS HUUUGE! When you have verification you want to go to
http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
![Image]()
Adding your URL to this site whenever you have time will get those bots working harder for you as well. Not bad for free HUH?
In the URL box type in your website address and in the comments box type as many keywords you can think of in there. Don’t forget to type in the spam bot deterrent letter to make sure you’re human. After that click Add URL and you will get a screen saying your site has been added to Google’s Search of websites. We will be talking a lot about keywords in a little bit
If has problems or would like a word document or pdf of this pm me with your email address and Ill make sure you get it.
Next we will be talking about key words and the placement of said keywords to make the best impact. SO GET READY!!![]()
If you have questions, or think that this tutorial should be tweaked in some way, please let us know and we will alter these contents. And thank you so much, Shannon, for going through this much work to make this. You rock!
Sincerely,
James Beltz
-----------------------------
The following was written by Shannon Allison and posted to the old forums. It has been copy and masted here as those forums are being moved...
There are a lot of ways to get your website found by Google. I am going to show you a few. There needs to be a disclaimer here, OK, This WILL NOT happen in hours or overnight but it will happen in a timely manner if you follow what I outline. I actually came across this by playing around with Google and doing a lot of reading. This is a multipart process and will work if your dedicated foe a few days. I noticed results fairly quick and have been happy, especially since I didn’t spend a dime to make it happen. Are you willing to spend a few minutes for a week or so to get your business seen on the first page of Google? OK, enough babbling!! Lets MAKE IT HAPPEN!
1. Sign up for Google webmaster tools at http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
After you are signed up you will get to a screen that looks close to this, see below.
2. What you need to do now is “add a site”, now there are a few different ways to add your site.
- Link to your Google Analytics account, You can use this option if your site already has a Google Analytics tracking code that uses the asynchronous snippet. You must be an administrator on the Analytics account.(pain in the butt)
- Upload an HTML file to your server You can choose this option if you can upload new files to your site. (if your comfortable with HTML)
- Add a meta tag to your site's home page You can choose this option if you can edit your site's HTML. (this is for anyone that can read this)
- Add a DNS record to your domain's configuration You can use this option if you can sign in to your domain registrar or hosting provider and add a new DNS record. (I have played with this but it’s a royal pain to complete and you can possibly harm your DNS records if you don’t know exactly what you are doing so I would label this very advanced)
Click the radio button for “add a meta tag to your site’s home page”. When you do this some text will appear in the blue box below. Now copy this text, and go to your website on SMUGMUG. You need to be signed in to your account and navigate to the control panel. Follow this path, tools>control panel>customize>advanced customizer>click edit, and you will come to this screen.
When you get to this area you want to scroll down to HEAD TAG. See below.
Now that you are here what you want to do is paste the text you copied from the webmaster website. See below for all the text I have in this box because this will lead into the next part of this tutorial.”Plastering your website with keywords that Google will see, without your customers seeing any of it”.
<META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="Shannon Allison,photographer,on location,child portraits,family portraits,private portraits,pictures,baby portraits,photographer Shannon Allison,high school senior portraits,portraits kids,portraits family,real estate photography,corporate portraits,product photography,business photography,event photography,special event photography,areal photography,car show photographer,reasonable price photography,cheap photography,outdoor portraits,"Bellefonte PA 16823","Pennsylvania photographer",corporate photographer,state college pa 16803,16801,17701,"state college pa photographer","penn state area photographer",>
<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="I am a on location photographer in Bellefonte PA 16823. I can and will do all types of photography. I can and will travel a reasonable distance to take your photographs.">
<META NAME="Author" CONTENT="shannon@shannonallisonphotography.com">
<meta name="google-site-verification" content="uA720qYp2mbpdQi0bEgPOyTPFcpE7h8bl_qUjC-aheo" />
Please note that everyone's verification will be different so don't copy mine,, it wont work!
*The last line which I highlighted is the Google verification text.FYI*
After you save the Google verification into your head tag, go ahead and save what you entered via the save button at the bottom of the page.
Next what you’re going to do is go back to where you copied the verification text and click “verify”. See below.
After you click verify you will, if everything was done correctly, you will get to a page like this.
If you get to this site, congratulations, your site is now verified with the world’s largest search engine. You may say yeah so, well think of it this way, when was the last time you went somewhere other than Google? Having said that, all the Droid phones and most of the other smart phones out there have Google apps that people use religiously. GOOGLE IS HUUUGE! When you have verification you want to go to
http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
Adding your URL to this site whenever you have time will get those bots working harder for you as well. Not bad for free HUH?
In the URL box type in your website address and in the comments box type as many keywords you can think of in there. Don’t forget to type in the spam bot deterrent letter to make sure you’re human. After that click Add URL and you will get a screen saying your site has been added to Google’s Search of websites. We will be talking a lot about keywords in a little bit
If has problems or would like a word document or pdf of this pm me with your email address and Ill make sure you get it.
Next we will be talking about key words and the placement of said keywords to make the best impact. SO GET READY!!
